Cardi B wins case filed by security guard who claimed rapper assaulted
her
[September 03, 2025]
By ANDREW DALTON
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A jury gave Cardi B a quick and absolute victory
Tuesday at a trial in the lawsuit of a security guard who alleged the
rap star assaulted her at a doctor's office during her then-secret first
pregnancy.
The jury of six men and six women at a small courthouse in Alhambra,
California deliberated for only about an hour before finding Cardi not
liable in the lawsuit brought by Emani Ellis, who alleged Cardi cut her
face with a fingernail and spat on her in the hallway of a Beverly Hills
obstetrician in February of 2018.
Only nine of the 12 jurors were required for a verdict in the civil
case, but their decision in Cardi's favor was unanimous.
“The next person who tries to do a frivolous lawsuit against me, I’m
going to counter-sue, and I’m gonna make you pay, because this is not
OK,” she said outside the courthouse, where she posed for pictures with
fans. “I am not that celeb that you sue, and you think is going to
settle. I’m not gonna settle. Especially when I’m super completely
innocent.”
She said she had to miss her kids' first day of school because of the
trial, and said her forehead was “raw, raw, raw” after all the elaborate
wig changes during the trial that at one point even left her lawyer
confused over which was her real hair. (None of them were, she said with
a laugh.)
During a lunchbreak before the verdict Tuesday in a moment captured by
cameras from several media outlets, she threw a marker she was using for
autographs at a man who shouted questions to her about whether she was
currently pregnant, and who the father is. She called the questions
disrespectful.
In two days of testimony last week that were livestreamed, widely viewed
and full of viral moments, the hip-hop star testified she feared that
Ellis was going to make her pregnancy public. She acknowledged that the
two argued, but said it never got physical.
“I will say it on my deathbed. I did not touch that woman," she said
after her win. "I did not touch that girl. I didn’t lay my hands on that
girl.”
Ron Rosen Janfaza, the lawyer for the plaintiff Ellis, did not
immediately respond to an email seeking comment. He said outside court
that they plan to appeal the decision.
After several days off, the trial resumed with closing arguments earlier
Tuesday.
Janfaza told jurors that Ellis, who had hoped to work in law enforcement
or something similar, “lost her future” along with her job over the
incident.
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Cardi B attends the Balmain Spring/Summer 2025 collection presented
in Paris on Sept. 25, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP,
File)
 "Whether it’s the FBI, police,
attorney, whatever she wanted to do, this incident cut it off,” he
said in his closing argument. “No more, because of the trauma she
sustained.”
He also called out the profanity Cardi freely used during her
testimony, suggesting she had scorn for the proceedings.
“The defendant came here, used all of this foul language," he told
the jurors. “This is a court of law, you cannot speak this way in
court. I have never seen this before.”
Cardi testified that she had been visiting Los Angeles doing
promotional work in February 2018 around that year’s NBA All-Star
Game. She was four months into her pregnancy with the first of her
three children with rapper Offset. She had told her inner circle she
was having a baby, but not the public or her parents.
The obstetrician’s office had been closed to other patients on a
Saturday for her privacy.
She said Ellis, a security guard for the building, followed her to
her fifth-floor appointment. Cardi told jurors last week that she
heard Ellis say her name into a phone and appeared to be filming
her.
“I told her, ‘Why are you recording?’” Cardi testified, “and she
said, ’Oh my bad.’ She practically apologized.’”
But the argument grew increasingly heated, she said.
“As we were arguing she’s backing me, she’s walking into me,” Cardi
said.
Ellis testified that the incident left her humiliated and
traumatized, and the scar on her face required cosmetic surgery.
Ellis, who lost her job over the incident, sought damages that
include medical expenses, compensation for emotional and physical
suffering, and lost wages, along with punitive damages. She does not
specify a total amount in the lawsuit but Cardi said from the stand
that she is “suing me for $24 million.”
A receptionist who broke up the argument between Cardi and Ellis
largely backed the rapper's account in testimony.
___
AP Entertainment Writer Ryan Pearson contributed to this report from
Alhambra, California.
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